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Dacia Maraini

Biography

Dacia Maraini (2011)

The daughter of well-known ethnologist Fosco Maraini, Dacia Maraini was born in 1936 and spent her early childhood in Japan while her father conducted his research. Because of her parents’ anti-fascist views, the family was confined to a concentration camp during the final years of the war. After their return from Japan she and her family lived in Sicily, for the first few years in Bagheria, at the ancestral home of her mother, painter Topazia Alliata. Dacia studied in Palermo, Florence and Rome, beginning her writing career with articles in literary magazines.

Her first novel, La vacanza, was published in 1962, and the second, L’età del malessere, won the International Formentor Prize in 1963 and was translated into twelve languages. She has subsequently published eight more novels, several investigative studies, and collections of poetry and essays. Among her other translated works are: Memorie di una ladra (1973) [Memoirs of a Female Thief ]; Donna in guerra (1975) [Woman at War]; Lettere a Marina (1980) [Letters to Marina]; Il treno per Helsinki (1984) [The Train]; Isolina (1985); La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa (1990) [The Silent Duchess]; Viaggiando con passo di volpe (1983-1991) [Traveling in the Gait of a Fox]. Her most recent works include Bagheria (1993), a narrative memoir on Sicily, and Cercando Emma (1994), a study of Flaubert’s Emma Bovary. She has won major literary prizes for her work, notably the Premio Campiello for La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa and the Premio Strega for her collection of short stories Buio in 1999. Both La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa and Bagheria (which had run to 12 editions by 1994) stayed on Italy’s bestseller lists for almost two years.

While continuing to publish novels and poetry, she co-founded the Teatro del Porcospino in the 1960s, and established the feminist experimental theatre La Maddalena in Rome, in 1973. The American literary magazine Aphra published her play Manifesto in instalments during 1972 and 1973, and a production was subsequently presented at the Provincetown Playhouse.

Another play, Mary Stuart, was produced at La Mama Theatre in New York, and at the Battersea Arts Centre in London (dir. Nicolette Kay), receiving the City Limits and Time Out Critics’ Choice British Premiere award in 1992. It was produced in Holland at the Publieke Theatre, in Spain at the Teatro Espanol de Madrid (dir. Hemilio Hernandez), and in Montevideo, Uruguay, at the Teatro Candela in 1986 (dir. Marcelino Dufau), as well as in Australia, Belgium, Germany, and Austria, and at California State University, Hayward, in 1990.

I sogni di Clitennestra was performed by the City Troupe in New York in September 1989 and in London in 1994 (dir. Nicolette Kay). Other plays include Dialogo di una prostituta con il suo cliente, performed in London by the Monstrous Regiment at the East End Theatre, 1980-81 (dir. Ann Mitchell), Stravaganza, performed in Vienna in 1987 at the Künstlerhaus, (dir. Johanna Thomek), then in Australia, Brazil, and Germany. Mela was performed in London by Muzikansky in 1993 (dir. Nicolette Kay).

Her plays continue to be translated and performed, such as the stage version of Marianna Ucrìa. Several of her books have been filmed, and she herself has written screenplays for such directors as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Marco Ferreri, Carlo Di Palma, and Margarethe Von Trotta. She continues to be active in feminist causes and as a commentator on politics and society, especially in columns for newspapers and weeklies. Her articles have appeared regularly in newspapers like Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, L’Unità, and Paese Sera. Some of these have been collected with earlier articles in La Bionda, la bruna, e l’asino (1987).

There followed Fare teatro (1966-2000), which collected together nearly all her theatrical works; in 2000, Amata scrittura, a volume of essays inspired by conversations with other writers; and in 2001, La nave per Kobe, the tale of the Maraini family’s voyage from Brindisi to Kobe, in Japan, when her father received a study grant to carry out his ethnological research after having given in to the risky temptation of tearing up his membership to the Fascist party in front of his father (Dacia was just two years old at the time).

In 2001, the fable La pecora Dolly was published by Fabbri, and in 2004, the novel Colomba was published by Rizzoli, in which Maraini accompanies her readers through the discovery of a fairytale-like story which delicately probes the motivations and emotions that guide the human spirit. 2007 saw the author’s return to the theatre with Passi affrettati (Hurried Steps), published by Edizioni Lanieri. The play consists of seven stories of violence against women, all true testimonies collected by Amnesty International from around the world. The play has been staged in the UK, under the direction of Nicolette Kay, in France by the company Talon Rouge (dir. Catherine Javaloyes) and in Spain by the company Crit, directed by Maraini herself and with the extraordinary participation of Rosana Pastor.

In 2008 Maraini’s most recent novel was published, Il treno dell’ultima notte, a novel centred on the depths of 20th-century totalitarianism. It narrates a voyage from the Shoah to Budapest, in 1956, the year of the revolution.